Three-week wait to see a GP, the GP voluntarily in a wheelchair and why you should swap the ketchup for seaweed

GPs made it on to the Daily Mail’s front page on the weekend, with the Saturday splash warning of a ‘three-week wait to see your doctor’. But hang on, in the article the Government rather than doctors are actually put on the spot about the poor statistics, with RCGP chair Dr Maureen Baker and former RCGP chair Professor Clare Gerada both speaking out on the tough working day of GPs.

Professor Gerada, who currently advises NHS England in London on a new strategy for the health service, said: ‘‘GPs who have been the bedrock of the NHS are struggling, seriously struggling.

Meanwhile, the Government accused the Mail of making a ‘misleading extrapolation of partial data’.

‘The most recent GP survey, a comprehensive exercise responded to by nearly 1 million people, showed the vast majority of patients are satisfied with their GP and rated their experience of making an appointment as good,’ a Department of Health spokesperons said.

Among the thousands of NHS workers coming up with ideas are a GP spending Monday in a wheelchair to better understand disabled patients and a manager aiding dementia patients in eating their lunch, the BBC writes.